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Apathy and Other Things Beginning with “A”

By NorthernStar

Abuse (v) physically hurt or injure

“Of course.The overhang!I need your phone.”

Sherlock's request had
become second nature by now and John had already handed his mobile over before
his brain had time to be annoyed.He had
ceased pointing out that Sherlock had a perfectly serviceable phone much closer
to hand in his own pocket some months ago.John had decided it was more that, with Sherlock's brain so highly
engaged, it was unable, or he was unwilling to let it, climb down from its
precipice to concern itself with such base things as pulling items out of his
pockets.And the same could be said of
eating and sleeping.

Sherlock remained
crouched in the alleyway, thumbs dancing on the tiny buttons on John's
phone.John couldn't see what he was
writing from where he stood – where Sherlock had made him stand for the last
hour or so after muttering something about rain patterns – but he could see
from the sharp focus in Sherlock's eyes that it was a vital piece of evidence he
was relaying to Lestrade.

Sherlock handed the
phone back.John glanced at it but
before he could decide whether to be so rude as it read what Sherlock wrote
right in front of the man or wait a few minutes until his back was turned and
John could at least pretend to himself that Sherlock didn't know what he was up
to, Sherlock stood up.

“Chinese?”He asked.

John's eyes flickered
to the end of the alleyway where Jessica Blake's broken and battered body had
been lying two days before.He didn't
have time to object.Sherlock, as
always, read his thought processes from his body language.

“It was her father,”
Sherlock told him.His eyes tightened in
annoyance.“Child abuse.Boring. There's a little place not too far
from here.Trust him, but still keep
your eyes open.”

“-year old girl.How can you- Her father?”John remembered Jessica's father, utterly
shattered by the death of his daughter but maintaining a quiet and admirable
dignity in his grief.John had liked
him.

“Yes. Child abuse, as I
said.The police are so reliant on CCTV
these days.If they used their brains
instead of their recording equipment, they wouldn't waste my time with
trivialities. Jessica entered the alley there.”Sherlock pointed down the alleyway.They had watched this footage themselves and reviewed how no-one had
followed or preceded her into the alley.Then he gestured at the exit, where another CCTV camera had seen her
crawling in a desperate bid to escape before collapsing.“That's where she was found.”

The distance wasn't
great, 600 yards or so, but the alley had no doors or windows leading onto it
and the walls were to sheer to climb.No
way for any assailant to enter the alley that would be unobserved.

Sherlock then looked
down at the cobbles below their feet.“This is where she was battered.”

Respectfully, John took
a step away.

“Heavy rain the night
she was murdered made the collection of forensic evidence difficult but it
shouldn't have impacted as much as it did, that suggests the attack took place
somewhere where there would have been more water flow that usual.”

John looked up.The overhang Sherlock had mentioned jutted
out from the roof and suddenly he understood.He could see, in his mind’s eye, the heavy rain flowing off the tiles, running
along the eves and pouring like a waterfall onto the ground, turning red as it
washed Jessica's blood down the drain set against the wall.

“There's no proper
guttering here, but the drain would suggest otherwise.There are small brackets, there and there,
where a drainpipe was fixed.They would
provide suitable leverage for an athletic individual to make both an assent and
decent.”

“So you think whoever
murdered Jessica climbed down here, beat her to death, then left the same
way.”Sherlock didn't smile but John
thought he was pleased than John was keeping up.“Why her father?”

“Whoever climbed down
here would need to be agile and under a certain weight and height.Unlikely those brackets would hold more than
12 stone.A man of your stature then.Her father shares both your height and your
build,” Sherlock began. “Although it is unlikely his current fitness level
matches yours, I did see he has a history of gymnastic competition.There were several trophies in his wardrobe.”

John decided he didn't
want to know when Sherlock had rifled through a grieving man's things.
“Sherlock, hundreds of people fit that description.” John said.

Sherlock smiled and the
not-quite-smug, not-quite pitying gleam lit his eyes.“Those brackets are rough, the edges are
sharp.James Blake's fingers were
scratched.He said he had been gardening
when we talked to him but the lawn was uncut and I noticed a number of weeds in
his flower bed.Unlikely a man so
attentive to his garden that he prunes roses on the day of his daughter's murder
would allow weeds to grow.”

“Maybe he wasn't a keen
gardener.Maybe he was just keeping
busy.People do strange things when
they're grieving.”

Another gleam, sharper
this time, as if it was intended to cut.“I noticed there were also marks on the edges of his training shoes like
they'd been recently scraped against something sharp.”Sherlock looked up at those brackets.“Skin fragments are relatively easy to wash
away in heavy rain.Rubber will adhere
to surfaces.”

John followed
Sherlock's line of sight and finally his eyes caught on the white mark on the
lowest bracket.

“That's...brilliant.”The words were out before he could stop them.

Sherlock turned.“Dim Sum?”

“Yes...No, we
should go to Blake's.”

The detective stopped.

“I want to see this bastard
in handcuffs.”

Something perilously
close to humour sparked briefly in Sherlock's eyes and John's anger flared to
see it.“Blake's arrest is a matter for
the police.”

“So that's it?Puzzle over, time to eat,” John snapped.“Two days ago we were standing over the body
of a child.How can you not want to see
her killer brought in?”

“Is our presence
required in any way?”

“No.”

“Then our absence is of
no consequence.”

“It matters.It matters to me.”The knot of anger that had formed in his
belly when he'd first examined the body began to uncoil, too rapidly for him to
reign in.“You know what he did to her!”

“My knowledge of
anatomical damage is extensive.Yours is
superior, of course, but I fail to see the relevance-”

“She was fourteen years
old!”

“Regrettably young,
yes, but she could not have been the first dead child you've seen.Nor I would imagine were her injuries the
worst.You were in Afghanistan. Civilian
deaths are an accepted, if unfortunate, consequence of war. I fail to see the
difference here.”

John froze.It felt like even his heart froze in that
second, arrested in his chest.It hurt
worse than any punch he'd ever received.

Sherlock just stood
there waiting.

John turned on his
heels and marched away.

--o0o--

The arrest was over by
the time the taxi dropped John off at the Blake's house.He stood outside for a while, watching the
forensic team begin their work, before beginning the long trek back.He took the tube when his leg began to
protest.It often ached after a case,
but rarely during.

He went to Sarah's,
intending to take her out but after consulting his wallet, decided pizza and a
DVD was more to his budget.The money he
got as a locum was generous, but after he made his monthly debt payments and
paid the rent there really wasn't that much left.

He stayed the night on
her sofa, even though he had the distinct impression that her bed was also on
offer.He told himself that it was
because he didn't want to make love to her the first time with anger in his heart.

He returned home in the
morning to find the flat in an even worse state of disarray than normal. He
took one look, sighed, put the kettle on and began to futile hunt for a clean
mug, finally opting for the least dirty. Washing up was out of the question.The sink was still full of water from the
Thames in which a human hand was floating.Sherlock was measuring the rate of degradation of fingernails coated in
various nail vanishes.The hand was
meaty and obviously male and prettily decorated with vanishes of different
colours and textures.John wondered if
this was quite what the man had in mind when he'd donated his body to medical
research.

“Coffee,” came a voice
from the living room, “black, two sugars.”

John cast a glance
behind him to the sofa, where Sherlock lay with a book open against his chest
and his violin dangling carelessly from his right hand.

Arguing seemed
pointless so he made Sherlock the coffee, clunked it down beside his silent
flatmate and drank his own tea quickly.

“I've got work 'til 8.”He muttered on his way out.“We need some milk.”

Sherlock didn't move.

--o0o--

Week One – Apathy
(n) lack of interest

“When are you going to
get rid of the hand?”

Sherlock didn't
answer.He lay on the sofa like a
monarch would lie in state, only with less life in his body and less colour in
his cheeks.

“The kitchen smells
like Jeffrey Dahmer's.”

Still no reply.In fact there was no indication that Sherlock
had even heard him.

“It's unhygienic.”

Nothing.John crossed the room and stared down at his
friend.

“Sherlock!”

John sighed.Sherlock had warned him about his silences
that first day and this wasn't the first time he'd fallen into one of these
moods.But that didn't make it any less
frustrating.

He flopped down in the
chair and reached for the remote to the telly, swearing softly when he realised
what was happening to him.

His left hand was
trembling.

John balled his fingers
into a fist, watching as the tension forced the tremor under control only to
begin again when he relaxed.He repeated
the action, studying the stop and start of his body's physical manifestation of
the ugliness inside his head.

...while working
towards a career in laparoscopic and bloodless surgery.The words on his CV mocked him.No surgeon could have a hand like his.His plan for his future stalled because his body hated him.

He missed the flicker
of life in his companion as he concentrated on his traitorous left hand.Sherlock's eyes focused on the flexing
fingers for just a few seconds but then the moment passed and his focus slipped
away.

--o0o--

It was Thursday before
Sherlock remembered to talk to John and even then it was only to berate John
for ruining his experiment.The doctor
had disposed of the hand and bleached every square inch of the kitchen.The bloated decomposing flesh had made him
retch in a way he hadn't done since his training at St Bart's.He had examined torn corpses left for days in
the sweltering heat of an Afghani sun that hadn't smelt that bad.

On Friday morning, John
dressed in only black suit he owned and left the flat at the usual time to see
his therapist.He returned to the flat
in the evening, his mind turning the events of the day over.

Sherlock was slumped in
his chair wearing the same pyjamas he was wearing the day before.He looked up as John entered and watched as
the doctor removed his plain black tie and shrugged of the jacket of his suit.

“How was the memorial
service?” He asked.

“It was...nice.” He
answered automatically and then he frowned.“You knew.”

“I saw the
announcements in the paper.It seemed
the kind of pointless ritual you'd feel compelled to take part in.”

“I was paying my
respects.”He snapped.

“To a dead girl you
never knew,” Sherlock's tone was like granite. “Your presence would have meant
nothing to her family.”

“That's not the point.”

“There is no point,
doctor. However much weeping and wailing there was at her memorial service, it
doesn't make her any less dead or her father any less responsible.The only outcome will be your insufferable
melancholy for the next few days.”

“You know, I think I
preferred it when you weren't talking to me.”He began to walk away.

“Tea.”Sherlock called after him.

John grabbed his suit
and banged the door behind him as he left.

--o0o--

John ended up in Regent's
park, wandering the footpaths and cursing his leg, which had begun to
ache.He had a clear choice between
visiting Sarah or his sister but neither option appealed.He preferred to be on his own.

Maybe Sherlock had been
right about the melancholy.

He returned home
several hours later and went straight to his room.He could hear Sherlock in the living room,
mercilessly torturing his violin in the kind of slow, disinterested pattern
that Sherlock could keep up for hours.

It was going to be a
long night.

--o0o--

Week Two – Aggravation
(n) worsening of a
situation

“Congratulations.”

John paused, coat half
way off his shoulders.“What?”

“On the consummation of
your relationship with Sarah.”

“How did-?” But he
stopped himself, closed his eyes, took a breath and shrugged his coat off.“Forget it.”

“There's no tension in
your left shoulder.You have some
muscular weakness in that area that increases if it is not properly supported
when you sleep.That tells me you spent
the night in a bed not on a sofa.”

John began walking
away.“I said I don't want to
know.”

But Sherlock had seized
on opportunity to work his bored brain.“And then there's your shirt: it's creased.You're a military man.You fold your clothes.The threads on the buttons are loose,
suggesting some force was used to remove your clothes and not by yourself.There's powder on the waistband of your jeans
– not talc, it's beige – foundation then.”

“Not listening.”

“And you smell like
her.”

John froze half way
towards the fridge. He looked back at his friend but Sherlock abruptly turned
over on the sofa, putting his back to John.

“I hope you'll be very
happy together,” he said, but the tone of his voice didn't match his words.

--o0o--

Clang!

John swore and flew out
of his bedroom, piling down the stairs in a way that made his leg throb angrily
in protest.

“Sherlock!”

Sherlock had finally
left the sofa.He stood in the middle of
the sitting room with a large scimitar blade in his right hand.He slashed at the curtains and several thin
slices of fabric fluttered up in the air.

“BORED!”He yelled and this time sliced the whole
curtain in half.

“What the-!Put that down.”

Sherlock expertly but
recklessly spun the sword like it was a majorette baton.“I'm BORED!”

John made a grab for
the blade, amazed that his friend hadn't sliced through his fingers with that
move.“Then watch telly,” he yelled
back.“Read a book.”

Sherlock stepped back,
expertly balancing the sword as if it were part of his own flesh.He whirled abruptly and swung viciously at
the floor. John dodged back, narrowly avoiding being impaled.Floor and metal met with a bone jarring clank
that John felt clean through to his teeth.

“Put that bloody thing
away before you hurt someone!”

“It's too QUIET.”Sherlock held up the sword with his right
hand and pushed his left into the unwashed tangle of his hair, drawing John's
eye. “In here, John.”He pulled on his
own hair.“I need noise.”And he swung the blade again, this time at
the coffee table.

John's reflexes had his
hand intercepting the blade even as his brain recognised this as a bad
idea.He swore as the razor sharp edge
sliced into his flesh, flinching away. “Bloody hell!”

The sword continued its
decent towards the coffee table and with an almighty crash, the old wood hove
in two and cups, glass beakers, vials of chemicals, magazines and books
scattered or shattered noisily on the floor.Sherlock's eyes fluttered closed like it was most beautiful thing he'd
ever heard.

John stared at the
devastation around them and then at the thin line of blood that had begun
welling up in the shallow gash on his arm.

Sherlock tossed the
sword over his shoulder.It clattered to
the floor with a gentle tinkle that seemed to mock the noise it had
caused.He walked carelessly over the
mess, treading on the shards of broken glass as if they weren't there and
slumped down on the chair.

John wasn't quite sure
what he would say until he said it.“You
just cut me.”

“Sherlock!”Mrs Hudson's voice accompanied her footsteps
on the stairs.“Are you all right?I heard banging.”She appeared in the doorway, one hand shading
her eyes.“I'm not interrupting
anything, am I?”

“We're fine, Mrs
Hudson,” Sherlock replied before John could object to her insinuation that his
love life, if he was ever insane enough to have one with Sherlock, would be
filled with BDSM.

She removed her hand
slowly as if still expecting to see something kinky.She squawked in horror when she saw the
coffee table.“That belonged to my
husband!”She snapped.

“I'm sorry,” John
said.“We'll replace it.”

“I'm still adding that
to the rent! And look at all that broken glass!”She came closer. “You be careful, Dr Watson,
you've already cut yourself.”

“It's nothing.”

“You can't be too
careful, dear.Let's get that
cleaned.”She bustled John into the
kitchen despite his protests.

Over the next hour, she
reminded them that she wasn't their housekeeper several times.But she still cleaned up the mess.

--o0o--

They ate their dinner
on their knees.Or at least, John
ate.Sherlock picked at the Asda's own
brand Shepherd's Pie John had given him as if he were dissecting its innards.

They were back to
silence again and John felt like they'd had some sort of relapse.

--o0o--

Asphyxiate (v) to cause to die or lose consciousness
by impairing normal breathing.

John bundled the
shopping bags up the stairs.He pushed
the door open and shuffled into the kitchen.The table, as always, was littered with chemistry equipment so John
dumped the bags down on the floor.

Something dripped onto
his head.

John looked up to see a
patch of damp spreading across the ceiling.

“Sherlock!”

He hurried up and the
stairs and cursed loudly as he saw water pooling under the bathroom door.He tried the door and found it was locked.

“Sherlock!”

There was no answer so
he banged on the door and yelled again.

Still nothing.

John stepped back and
kicked at the door.Unlike in the movies,
it didn't burst open dramatically.It
took a couple of hits before the hinges gave.

Water was sloshing over
the edge of the old iron Victorian bath.John hurried over, intending to turn off the taps but as he moved his
eyes caught on a shadow at the bottom of the bath.

Sherlock lay there,
pale and naked and slack, eyes half-open and unfocused while tendrils of dark
hair ghosted around his head.

John lunged, plunging
his hands into the water, distantly aware of how cold it was.He grabbed at Sherlock, fingers digging into
his chill flesh and pulled him up out of the water.He flopped limply in John's arms, lips tinged
blue with no visible signs of respiration.It was only when he hit the hard tiles on the bathroom floor that he
gasped, a hideous rattle in his chest that didn't sound like anything remotely
human.

As he lay gasping, John
quickly and efficiently checked his airways, heart rate and pupils before
rolling him gently into the recovery position.Then he pulled the towels off the rail and tucked them around him.

“What happened?”He asked when Sherlock's colour began
returning to normal.“Did you hit your
head?Feel faint?”His fingers slipped around Sherlock's wrist
and found his pulse.John looked at his
watch and began counting beats.“When
did you last eat?”

It seemed a long time
before there was an answer although John was aware it could only have been 30
seconds or so, an aeon of time when the only things in his world were the gasps
coming from Sherlock's chest, the rush of water from the taps and the sound of
it spilling on the floor, the wetness leeching the heat from his body and...

...and the gentle thrum
of a pulse under his finger. His own heart began to slow and finally to match
that delicate beat.

“Conducting...experiment.”Sherlock finally gasped.

John got to his
feet.“Into what?Suicide?”

“Autonomic responses
during periods of asphyxiation.”Sherlock sat up.Wet snarls of
dark hair were plastered on his forehead.“The data I was collecting would have proved very useful had your
actions not corrupted the data.”

“You assumed I wasn't
breathing.”He corrected as he stood
up.“A perfectly rational conclusion to
make given the circumstances.”Sherlock
calmly turned off the taps.“My
respiration rate had lowered. Quite effectively. Low water temperature speeds
the natural process.”

John stood there in his
water logged sweater, chilled to the bone and listened to Sherlock explain,
sounding more animated than he had in days.

But the cold John felt
outside really couldn't match that inside him.

--o0o--

The beer terrace was
crowded and noisy and a pall of smoke hung in the air.John hated it out here, but it was marginally
better than sitting at a table with his sister and trying to make a
conversation work.There was no danger
of that on the beer terrace.Harry
Watson had lit a fag the moment they stepped out and her mouth was currently
occupied.

John leant on the
railings, beer in hand, and tried to breathe the fresher air beyond.

Harry took a long drag
on her cigarette, put her back to the railing and looked critically at her
brother. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on the darkness.

“You look like crap,
John.”Smoke coloured her words.“You've got to stop living with that weird
bloke.”

“It's fine.He's fine.”

“I read your blog.He's not fine.Dragging you into things.Dangerous things.”Her face had that look again; the one that
said his injury in Afghanistan had hurt her as much as it had harmed him.And sure enough that guilt trip wasn't far
behind.“You nearly died a few months
ago for God's sake.You're not well.”

John finally turned to
look at her.“How many have you had
today?”

She blew air through
her teeth.“We are not talking about
me!”

John's lips twitched up
in small smile.“We're not talking about
me either.”

Conversation didn't
last after that and ten minutes later, John was hailing a cab to take him home.

--o0o--

Week Three – Affliction(n) something that causes
hurt

Gunfire.All around him.The fierce rat-tat-tat drilling into his ears,
the sound so expansive he could feel the vibrations in his own chest.

“Watson!”

He could smell
sickly sweet scent of burning flesh and freshly spilled blood mixed with the
acrid tang of spent incendiary devices.

“Watson!”

The harsh sunlight
hurt his eyes, forcing him to squint, rendering his comrades into a jumble of
half-seen faces and his surroundings into a cacophony of shapes and shadows.

“Watson!”

John shot forward in
bed, heart pounding and lungs straining for more air.He fought to bring his breathing under
control before falling back onto his sweaty sheets.The pattern of his breaths came perilously
close to sobs but he never let them out.

The room was completely
dark, no light filtered through the curtains.John glanced at the clock.The
glowing numbers announced it was 03:27.He knew from past experience that trying to get back to sleep was futile
so he sat up and reached for his laptop.The space on his bedside table was empty.He had left it downstairs.

John sighed.He hated getting up in the night.He would either wake Sherlock or Sherlock
would already be awake; either way, the detective would immediately deduce John
was having nightmares.Sometimes John
suspected Sherlock could even tell exactly what events he'd been dreaming about.

But he got out of bed
anyway and padded as softly as he could down the stairs.He sighed heavily when he entered the living
room and had his worst fears confirmed.

Sherlock was lying on
the sofa.

John crossed the room
and scooped up his laptop.

Sherlock seemed to be
oblivious to his presence and that suited John.He was half way back to the stairs when he frowned.Maybe he'd spent too much time around
Sherlock's deductions but...

He turned and his eyes
caught on what his brain had unconsciously recognised.There was a brown glass bottle with a child
safety cap standing on the new coffee table that Mrs Hudson had demanded they
buy.Next to it was a dosing cup with a
small residual amount of emerald green fluid.

His eyes flickered to
Sherlock.The young man's face was
suffused in a kind of serene relaxation that John had never seen before.

John came over, put
down his laptop and snatched up the bottle.“What the hell's that?”He asked,
because even though he knew, he wanted to be wrong.

Sherlock didn't even
open his eyes.“Physeptone.”

“Methadone!”John shouted.“You're taking methadone?”

“I need it.”

“Nobody 'needs'
methadone, Sherlock.Only addicts and I
know you're not an addict.”But he
remembered Lestrade's drugs bust all those months ago.He remembered Sherlock's words.John frowned. “You're on a programme?”

“No.I'm not an addict. I'm not on any
'programme'. I only use it occasionally.”

John exhaled and turned
away, forcing himself to stay calm.“Can
you hear what you're saying?How can you
be so stupid?”

“Street drugs are
unwise.”His voice was calm.“Far too impure.I can always tell what they've been cut with
and how many times.It's distracting.”

“That's not what I
meant.”John snapped.“You haven't left the flat in weeks.Go out.Meet people.Real people, not
serial killers.Taking part in the world
is intellectually stimulating. But you wouldn't know that because you'd rather
lie on your back and get stoned.”

“And what 'part of the
world' do you suggest, doctor?”His tone
danced close to being a sneer.“Perhaps
you think I should follow your example and try dating?Hours spent talking about inconsequential
things, listening to another person's petty little issues, eating mediocre
food, all for an hour or two of biologically driven exertion that leads to
approximately 5 seconds of pleasant physiological sensations.”His lips twisted into a rictus smile.“Hardly worth my time.”

John wasn't
listening.He was studying the bottle's
dispensary label.“Did you get this at
St Bart's?”

Sherlock snatched it
back.“The pharmacist owed me a favour.”

John considered the implications
– possession of a class A drug, falsified blue 'scripts, illegal entries in the
CD register – and looked away.He
physically didn't want to look.He could
feel his hand trembling and he hated it.He hated Sherlock for being stupid and brilliant and bored and hated
Lestrade for doing his job these last few weeks and making it that way, hated
Harry because, God, she was right, he wasn't well yet and maybe he never would
be.He was tired of this – bone deep
exhausted – and yet he couldn't let go because being here with Sherlock,
working with Sherlock, mattered.Sherlock
mattered.He should probably hate
himself for that too but there wasn't any left to go round.

“I need to work,
John.”The words were soft, cushioned no
doubt by the drug.

“My only problem is
that London's criminal classes seem quite incapable of originality.”

He took a breath.“I can help you.”

“If you're so desperate
to help someone, perhaps you should start with yourself.”

“What?”

Sherlock's head snapped
up.“Your hand is shaking,” he
said.“When you walked over here, you
were limping.Your leg is hurting.I heard you shouting in your sleep so clearly
your nightmares have returned.Instead
of inflicting your diagnosis on me, let me inflict one on you.You're suffering from post-traumatic stress,
doctor, and the work is the only thing that makes it go away.”

John didn't reply.Finally he got up, took the bottle of
methadone from Sherlock's unresisting fingers and locked it away with his
gun.Then leant over the desk with a
sigh, head hanging loosely.He squeezed
his eyes shut.

“You know I'm right,
John.”

Of course he did.He was doctor.He knew the symptoms of PTSD and he had
enough self-awareness to recognise them in himself.He also knew evasion when he heard it.He'd used the same tactic with Harry.

“Good.Don't take any more.”He said.“Shoot the wall, chop the furniture, boil body parts in every single
saucepan we own, do whatever you want instead, I don't care.”

Sherlock's eyes
flickered to the drawer.One small lock
was a paltry deterrent for even ordinary men.

“You're not taking any
more.”There was an edge to John's voice
that he hadn't heard in a long time, not since Kabul.

Those eyes returned to
staring blankly at the ceiling and then finally closing.

John sat down in the
chair.He would dispose of the methadone
tomorrow and not another drop would pass Sherlock's lips.

He was going to make
sure of that.

It was going to be
another long night.

--o0o--

Axiom (n) a self-evident truth that requires no
proof.

John's head lolled on
his chest and he was aware of a dull ache in his neck growing more insistent as
he came awake.Something bleeped and the
noise jerked him out of his doze.

Sherlock's phone.

John sat forward
yawning and stretching.He was still sitting
in the chair and when he opened his stiff fingers, the drawer key was still
nestled in his palm.

The sofa was
empty.

John looked
around.Sherlock stood in the kitchen,
mobile in hand, looking better than he had in days.He had washed and dressed in the night, no
doubt inspired by the warmth of the drug.

John watched a smile
spread across his face as he read the text he'd been sent.

“The Gloria Scott.”He muttered and began tapping away, no doubt
searching the net.

John got up and hurried
upstairs to put on clothes.He was back
downstairs in just over two minutes, towelling his hair roughly while swishing
a mouthful of Listerine around his teeth.

Sherlock threw him his
jacket.He let the towel drop to the
floor and caught it, spinning into the sleeves as he spat in the sink.

“Camden Lock.”Sherlock said and led the way out of the
flat.

Mrs Hudson saw them on
the stairs.

“Look at you both,
looking so happy.”She smiled.“Your little tiff over then?”

“It's a wonderful day,
Mrs Hudson.”

And as they stepped out
into the bitter wind, turning up their collars against the driving rain, John
looked up at the miserably grey sky and silently agreed.It was a wonderful day.

He didn't need to look
to know his hand had stopped shaking.His leg didn't hurt anymore and he knew he'd sleep just fine tonight.

Who wants to deal with
reality anyway?

--End--

Notes:

Author's notes:- John's CV quote appears in The Blind Banker. Yay for HD!- Just in case you thought my knowledge of obtaining methadone was frankly quite dodgy, I'm a Pharmacy Technician.- I tried writing Sherlock's POV but completely failed. I know the books too well and there is something lacking in those not 'written' by Watson.- I am slightly alarmed at there being so many other letters of the alphabet.